DAMASCUS, Syria
(AP) -- President Bashar Assad vowed Thursday that "Syria will defend
itself" against Western military strikes over a suspected chemical
weapons attack, and the U.N. said inspectors will leave within 48 hours
carrying information that could be crucial to what happens next.
British
Prime Minister David Cameron argued strongly for military intervention
in Syria but was rejected in a preliminary vote in Parliament, while
French defense officials said openly for the first time that their
military is preparing for a possible operation. The Obama administration
was briefing congressional leaders about its case for attacking Syria.
The
U.S., Britain and France blame Assad's regime for the alleged chemical
weapons attack Aug. 21 on rebel-held suburbs of Damascus. The Syrian
government denies the allegations, saying rebels staged the attack to
frame the regime.
At the United Nations, a
meeting of the permanent members of the Security Council on the Syrian
crisis ended after less than an hour after being convened by Russia, a
staunch ally of the Assad regime.
As Western leaders made their case at home for intervening in Syria's 3-year-old civil war, Assad remained defiant.
"Threats
to launch a direct aggression against Syria will make it more adherent
to its well-established principles and sovereign decisions stemming from
the will of its people, and Syria will defend itself against any
aggression," he said in comments reported by the Syrian state news
agency.
It's not clear whether Assad would
retaliate against any attacks or try to ride them out in hopes of
minimizing the threat to his continued rule. The U.S. has said regime
change it not the objective of any military action it may carry out.
The
U.N. experts have been carrying out on-site investigations this week to
determine whether chemical weapons were used in the attack that the
group Doctors Without Borders says killed 355 people. Inspectors visited
the eastern suburb of Zamalka, where they interviewed survivors and
collected samples.
Amateur video posted online
showed U.N. inspectors in gas masks walking through the rubble of a
damaged building. One inspector scooped pulverized debris from the
ground, placed it in a glass container and wrapped the container in a
plastic bag. The video corresponded to other AP reporting of the events
depicted.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
urged Western powers to hold off on any military action until the
experts can present their findings to U.N. member states and the
Security Council. Speaking in Vienna, Ban said the U.N. team is to leave
Syria on Saturday morning and will immediately report to him. He also
said that he spoke to President Barack Obama about ways to expedite the
U.N. probe.
Some of the experts will take
samples to laboratories in Europe after leaving Damascus, according to
U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq, adding that the team's final report will
depend on the lab results and could take "more than days."
The
mandate of the U.N. team is to determine whether chemical agents were
used in the attack, not who was responsible. But Haq suggested that
evidence collected by investigators - including biological samples and
interviews - might give an indication of who was behind the attack.
"Their
mission is to determine whether chemical weapons were used. It's not
about attribution. At the same time, I would like to point out that they
will have large number of facts at their disposal - they have collected
a considerable amount of evidence through samples, evidence through
witness interviews - and they can construct from that evidence of a
fact-based narrative that can get at the key facts of what happened on
the 21 of August," Haq said.
British and
American leaders - who have put the blame for the attack squarely on the
regime's shoulders - faced pushback against possible punitive military
strikes, particularly before the investigators release their
conclusions.
In a stunning defeat Thursday
night, Cameron's government lost a preliminary vote calling for military
strikes. Although nonbinding, the rejection means Cameron's hands are
tied and he released a terse statement to Parliament saying it was clear
to him that the British people did not want to see military action.
The vote lost 285-272 and the prime minister said he would respect the will of the House of Commons.
At
the start of the week, Cameron had seemed ready to join Washington in
possible military action against Assad. But the push for strikes against
the Syrian regime began to lose momentum as Britain's Labour Party
announced its opposition to the move.
Cameron
promised to give the U.N. inspectors time to report back to the U.N.
Security Council and try to secure a resolution there. He also promised
to give lawmakers a second vote in a bid to assuage fears that Britain
was being rushed into an attack on Assad.
It
wasn't enough, however. Suspicions lingered that what was billed as a
limited campaign would turn into an Iraq-style quagmire.
Obama
also was trying to shore up political support for a move against Syria.
The administration planned briefings for leaders of the House and
Senate and national security committees, U.S. officials and
congressional aides said.
Obama, although
still reportedly weighing his options, signaled Wednesday the U.S. was
moving toward a punitive strike, saying he has "concluded" that Assad's
regime is behind the attacks and that there "need to be international
consequences."
U.S. intelligence officials
said the intelligence linking Assad or his inner circle to the Aug. 21
attack is no sure thing, with questions remaining about who controls
some of Syria's chemical weapons stores and doubts about whether Assad
ordered the strike.
The administration has signaled that it would act against the Syrian government even without the backing of allies or the U.N.
French
defense officials said publicly for the first time that their military
is preparing for a possible operation in Syria - but President Francois
Hollande stopped short of announcing armed intervention.
Unlike
Obama and Cameron, he has a freer hand to decide how to deal with the
crisis - Hollande does not need parliamentary approval to launch
military action that lasts less than four months.
French
Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said "the armed forces have been
put in position to respond" if Hollande commits French forces to an
international intervention.
France has a dozen
cruise missile-capable fighter aircraft at bases in the United Arab
Emirates and the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti. France's military
was at the forefront of the NATO-led attacks on Libyan dictator Moammar
Gadhafi in 2011, and led an intervention against extremists in Mali
earlier this year.
The U.S. has already
dispatched naval forces toward the eastern Mediterranean toward Syria's
shores. If Obama decides on military action, U.S. administration and
defense officials in recent days have said the most likely move would be
the launch of Tomahawk missiles off ships in the Mediterranean.
Syrian
officials have urged the U.N. inspectors to extend their mission to
investigate what the regime alleges are three chemical attacks against
Syrian soldiers this month in the Damascus suburbs.
Haq,
the U.N. spokesman, said the U.N. team will leave despite the
government's request, although the appeal is being given serious
consideration and that the experts intend to return to Syria to
investigate other incidents.
The brief meeting of the Security Council permanent members was the second time in two days they had met on Syria.
In
a tension-filled meeting Wednesday, the U.S., Britain, France, China
and Russia discussed a resolution proposed by Britain to authorize the
use of military force against Syria. Moscow firmly opposes military
action.
---
Lucas
reported from Beirut. Also contributing reporting were Associated Press
writers Yasmine Saker and Karin Laub in Beirut, Gregory Katz and Raphael
Satter in London, Sylvie Corbet and Jamey Keaten in Paris, Alexandra
Olson and Peter James Spielmann at the United Nations, and George Jahn
in Vienna contributed reporting.
---
Follow Ryan Lucas on Twitter at www.twitter.com/relucasz
No comments:
Post a Comment